1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having a circuit comprising a thin film transistor (hereinafter referred to as TFT) formed over a substrate having an insulating surface and to a method of manufacturing the same. More particularly, the present invention provides a technique suitable for use in an electro-optical device, typically a liquid crystal display device having a pixel portion and a driver circuit provided in the periphery of the pixel portion over the same substrate, and electronic equipment incorporating the electro-optical device. Note that in the present specification, the semiconductor device indicates general devices that may function by use of semiconductor characteristics, and the above electro-optical device and the electronic equipment incorporating the electro-optical device are categorized as the semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the electro-optical device, typically an active matrix type liquid crystal display device, a technique in which a TFT is utilized for the purpose of structuring a switching element and an active circuit has been developed. A TFT uses a semiconductor film formed on a substrate such as a glass substrate by vapor phase growth as an active layer. A material such as silicon or silicon germanium having silicon as its principal constituent is suitably utilized in the semiconductor film. The semiconductor film as such can be classified into an amorphous silicon film or a crystalline silicon film, typically a polycrystalline silicon film, depending on the manufacturing method of the semiconductor film.
The TFT that uses an amorphous semiconductor (typically an amorphous silicon) film as an active layer cannot attain an electric field effect mobility of several cm2/Vsec or more because of electronic physical properties originated in the amorphous structure, or the like. Due to this, in an active matrix type liquid crystal display device, despite being available for use as the switching element (hereinafter referred to as pixel TFT) for driving the liquid crystals in the pixel portion, the TFT using the amorphous semiconductor as the active layer has been unusable in forming a driver circuit for performing image display. Accordingly, a technique in which a driver IC utilized as the driver circuit is mounted by the TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) method or the COG (Chip On Glass) method has been employed.
On the other hand, a TFT using a semiconductor film containing a crystal structure (hereinafter referred to as crystalline semiconductor film) (typically crystalline silicon or polycrystalline silicon) as the active layer is capable of attaining high electric field effect mobility, making it possible to form various functional circuits over the same glass substrate. Besides the pixel TFT, in the driver circuit, forming other circuits on the same substrate such as a shift register circuit, a level shifter circuit, a buffer circuit, and a sampling circuit has been realized. Such circuits are formed by using a CMOS circuit as a base circuit, which comprises an n-channel TFT and a p-channel TFT. Supported by this technique in mounting these kinds of driver circuits, it has become clear that a TFT using as an active layer a crystalline semiconductor layer that is capable of forming driver circuits in addition to the pixel portion over the same substrate is suitable for promoting reduction in weight and thickness of a liquid crystal display device.
When comparing TFTs from their characteristics, the TFT that uses the crystalline semiconductor layer as the active layer is superior. However, in order to manufacture TFTs corresponding to the various circuits other than the pixel TFT, there is a problem in that the manufacturing process becomes a complicated one, thereby increasing the number of steps. This increase in number of steps is not only a factor in the increase in production costs, but apparently also is the cause in reducing yield.
The operating conditions of the pixel TFT and the TFTs of the driver circuits are not always the same. On account of this, the characteristics that are required of a TFT are quite different. The pixel TFT is formed of the n-channel TFT and drives, as a switching element, a liquid crystal by applying a voltage to the liquid crystal. The liquid crystal is driven by an alternate current, thus a method called frame inversion driving is widely adopted. In this method, for the purpose of suppressing the power consumption low, the characteristic that is demanded of the pixel TFT is to sufficiently lower an off current value (a drain current that flows during an off-operation of the TFT). On the other hand, since a high driver voltage is applied to the buffer circuit of the driver circuit and other circuits thereof, it is necessary to raise the withstand voltage of the TFT so that it will not break when a high voltage is applied. Also, in order to make the current drive ability higher, it is necessary to sufficiently secure an on current value (a drain current that flows during an on-operation of the TFT).
As a structure of the TFT to reduce the off-current value, a low concentration drain (LDD:Lightly Doped Drain) structure is known. In this structure, there is provided a region that is doped with an impurity element at a low concentration between a channel forming region and a source region or a drain region that is formed by doping an impurity element at a high concentration, and this region is called the LDD region. Further, as a means of preventing the degradation of the on current value caused by a hot carrier, a so-called GOLD (Gate-drain Overlapped LDD) structure is known in which the LDD region is arranged so as to overlap a gate electrode via a gate insulating film. With a structure as such, the high electric field in the vicinity of a drain is alleviated, thereby preventing hot carrier injection, a known effective prevention of the degradation phenomenon.
However, there is another point that must be given attention to besides the above off current value and the on current value. For example, the bias state of the pixel TFT and the TFT of the driver circuit such as the shift resist circuit or the buffer circuit is not necessarily the same. For example, in the pixel TFT, a large reverse bias (a negative voltage in an n-channel TFT) is applied to a gate, whereas the TFT of the driver circuit basically does not operate in the reverse bias state. Also, regarding the operating velocity, the pixel TFT may be 1/100 or less than that of the TFT of the driver circuit. The GOLD structure is highly effective in preventing the deterioration of the on current value, but on the other hand, there arises a problem in that the off current value becomes higher compared with the usual structure of an LDD. Therefore, the GOLD structure is not a preferred structure for applying to the pixel TFT. Contrarily, although the usual structure of the LDD is highly effective in suppressing the off current value, it has a low effect in relaxing the electric field in the vicinity of a drain and in preventing deterioration caused by the hot carrier injection. It is thus not always preferable to form all TFTs to have the same structure in a semiconductor device that has a plurality of integrated circuits different from one another in the operation condition, as in active matrix liquid crystal display device. The problem as such becomes apparent especially as the characteristics of crystalline silicon TFTs are enhanced and more is demanded for the performance of active matrix liquid crystal display devices.
Further, in order to stabilize the operations of these circuits to be manufactured by using the n-channel TFT and the p-channel TFT, it is necessary to set values such as the threshold voltage of the TFT and the sub-threshold coefficient (S value) within a predetermined range. In order to do this, it is necessary to examine the TFTs from both the viewpoint of the structure and the viewpoint of the materials constituting the structure.